1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a robot cleaner and a method for controlling the same.
2. Background
A robot has been developed for industrial purposes and served as part of factory automation. With the recent extension of robot application fields, e.g., medical robots, space and aircraft robots, etc., home robots are being developed and manufactured. A robot which can autonomously move is called a mobile robot.
A typical example of home mobile robots is a robot cleaner. The robot cleaner is a type of home appliance, which sucks in dust or particles while moving about an area to be cleaned. Such robot cleaner includes a pattern projection unit for projecting light in a predetermined pattern toward a floor of an area in front of the main body of the robot cleaner, and a camera for photographing the area to which the light is projected. The state of a cleaning area (e.g., the position of the floor, obstacles around the robot cleaner, the boundary between the floor and an obstacle and the like) can be recognized by analyzing a light pattern appearing in an image obtained through the camera.
Since some materials of floors or objects to which light is projected reflect the light, a new light pattern due to reflection can be detected in addition to the original light pattern. In this case, the pattern generated due to reflection of light needs to be eliminated in analysis of the state of the cleaning area. Accordingly, there is a need to devise a method for discriminating an unnecessary light pattern, e.g., a light pattern generated due to reflection of light, from light patterns detected from an image.